Nielsen's State of Media: The Social Media Report 2012

Today, we want to point you to one of this year’s top resources about the state of media (and one you should bookmark) – Nielsen’s State of Media: The Social Media Report 2012. There’s no need for us to peel back the layers and outline every piece of it, but we do want to point out a few key findings before you guys spend some quality time with the report itself.

1. Compare the amount of time spent on social media by device category: PC vs. mobile/tablet. On average, mobile web & apps win out over PC. That is pretty significant when you consider where web development, advertising dollars and marketing campaigns will go in 2013 and beyond. We have passed the tipping point: the PC is now the “old” interface. Mobile devices have overtaken the PC when it comes to digital social usage.

2. Year over year, unique users of the mobile web has almost doubled in the US. (82% increase.) Mobile app users have also increased by 85%. PC web users, however, have gone down a bit (4%). Something about these numbers remind us of other media tipping points we’ve seen in the last few years.

To make this data relevant to you, let’s focus on a few quick questions: where are your customers? How are they accessing the web? How much time are they spending there? (How much time are they spending there compared to “traditional” media, and how will this impact where you focus your resources and budgets?) What kinds of experiences are they expecting? What are they talking about? What does this all mean to your business?

3. Year over year, US web users spent 120% more time accessing digital content through apps than a year ago vs. +4% via the good old PC. But wait… when you look at net numbers, the lion’s share of minutes spent accessing web content the PC still dominates: 363 billion minutes (PC) vs. 158 billion minutes on mobile web and mobile apps combined.

So here, think trends vs. volume. Be aware of the shift, but be also be aware that the good old PC-based web is far from dead. Plan for mobile, plan for apps, invest your money there, but don’t abandon the non-mobile web just yet. Think “and” rather than “or.” Think combination rather than replacement.

Also, from January to June 2012, active Twitter users discussing or sharing updates about TV content grew from 26% to 33%. Whether you are a media buyer or a social media director looking to justify your budget, this trend is worth keeping an eye on. If it inspires you to use social media to drive the reach of your television content (including advertising), you’re on the right track.

How can social channels and social sharing increase reach and amplify the reach of your content? How can these same mechanisms help customers discover your products or move them up into their hierarchy of planned purchases? How might you leverage monitoring platforms to better understand these mechanisms and tie them into customer acquisition, development and retention strategies?

(If you weren’t yet asking these questions, you should be.)

5. “Second-screen” is actually a little more complex than what has been presented to your team, but that’s a good thing. Here is a quick breakdown of what people actually do on the web while they are watching television content (and how they do it):

Takeway 1: Immediate calls to action work. If you are buying ads on TV (or working with product placement strategies), make sure that your digital storefront and/or digital springboard towards an offline purchase is a) easy to find, b) easy to share, and c) built to drive the user behaviors you expect it to drive.

2. Design one-click tie-ins to product pages, social channels and other relevant content.

Takeaway 3: If you plan on paying for TV content in 2013 (advertising or actual programming), you’re going to need to include a second-screen plan to go along with it. Not doing this is basically the equivalent of posting a phone number in an ad but not having someone to answer the phone if someone tries to call. Relying on people to Google your product, your TV program or your company worked great in 2010. You can’t really just rely on that anymore.

Okay, that’s it for us. Big thanks to Nielsen and NM Insights for putting this together. Reports like this one tend to help companies make better digital spend decisions, so that’s a huge + in our book. For that, it goes at the top of our 2012 studies bookmarks. Great stuff. We hope it will help you with 2013 planning.